Cancer
by Primi-tan
Summary: Alternative Title: 8 things Death The Kidd hates about Chrona Gorgon.
1. Diagnosis

**A/N:** Goddamn it's been a while since I uploaded anything here, huh? So yeah, ummm, creepy obsessive stalker-ish Kidd/Chrona because the more I look at Kidd's character (what little there is in canon), the more prone I think he is to being a total. Mental_. Nutcase_. Especially if the cirsumstances allow it. No idea where I'm going with this yet.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Soul Eater. The series rightfully belongs to Atsushi Okubo.

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The mist is a gray blur and he ignores the sweet void of nothing because what taints this world so is getting away from him. That abomination is black against the gray and he can hear the sword yelling at it's wielder, and it yells back but in a more fearful manner.

Silver, slick and deadly his weapons fire again and again at it. In the back of his fucked-up mind he wonders if he will indeed be able to bring down the demon at this rate. His bullets barely even put a scratch on it, if any.

But it doesn't belong. It's his duty to eliminate that which doesn't belong in this perfect world that he will carve with his own hands when he takes the throne.

The thing manages to abscond, and it's his own fault, but he doesn't want to accept that.

_(There's a lot of things he doesn't want to accept about himself, at all. Because gods have no flaws and he'll be damned if he doesn't get rid of his own or even acknowledge them._

_At times he'll dream of days when he can go beyond the earth, beyond the sun and moon and out into the stars. He'll have the power to correct, and organize and eliminate._

_And create the perfect universe._

_He has time, too. All the time in the world.)_

XXXXXXXX

She sits, and she waits for the world to start moving again.

It's all stopped. Come to a jarring halt and everything holds it's breathe, waiting for a change.

Ragnarok had long since grown bored of picking on her, retreating into her back with a squelch she gotten used to and Chrona is alone. The vast room of endless pillars and discolored yellow that disappear into black seems to enshroud her, and the silence tries to suck the marrow from her bones but she is content not to break it. It could devour her if she let it, but it never does. She fears to speak, maybe out of habit.

The girl with hair like floppy bunny ears doesn't return, and there are no more of the faint noises, they had almost been like the faintest scritch-scratch of her mother's pen flitting across a piece of paper to take notes on her experiments.

What had happened to Mother, anyways?

Had this vast tunnel that lead to the source of all anarchy eaten her like it was trying to do to Chrona now, painted the walls with her blood and crushed her muscles to dust? Had she lived to see all her labors bear poisonous, rotten fruit dripping oily black juice?

She had no answers. Not one.

And that is why she sits, and she waits for a change, and it would most likely be something she wouldn't understand or have the power to stand up to.

Always had there been change, but now Chrona has nothing to but but wait for the world to swallow her alive.

_(They come for her, eventually, voices echoing through the dark and they reach her like drifting paper on the wind. The silence breaks but it does not consume her flesh. Nonetheless, her skin crawls as though bugs scamper across it at the sight of other people, ones she cannot drive her sword through because Maka is friends with them._

_Red blood had always been a strange thing to her, but maybe because hers was always black._

_When she see's her mother's body laying further up the tunnel, cleaved in half and a content smile on her face, pleased with the success of her work, Chrona knows that she has never learned how to grieve._

_Instead, she stares._

_And then the world begins moving again.)_

XXXXXXXX

For him, sometimes the tiniest incorrection, the smallest of inperfections, can prove to be his biggest enemies. They linger in a sea of balance and then nothing is right. This little problem latches into his brain and it spreads like a disease, weakening everything from his spirit, to his sleeping schedule, to his thought process.

There is no room for wrongs, no time for their existence to continue any longer.

And so his entire being will go into devotion to correcting the problem.

It's only gone to the extreme once; in his own home, a single painting that was amoung many were always to be found straightened and balanced. He'd tilt it upright, turn his back, and then he'd return to find it off again.

He did this 8 times, and then his temper grew out of control with an almost audible snap in the very back of his mind.

And he tore the painting to shreds, neatly in half and then in even splits in the canvas.

When he finds out the Demon Sword's admittance to Shibusen he doesn't know what to think at first. The cogs of his brain cease to function and come to a grinding halt and the only thing he can do is stand there. He misses his father's laughter and a huge, foam hand pats Kidd's head.

"Now, now Kiddo, you know I wouldn't do this without good reason."

"You're letting that...thing into this school?" He chokes out, and his voice feels that it does not belong to him. It's distant and tight with disbelief.

"Oh relax, Kidd!~" Hs father chuckles. "Sometimes you have to take a chance and trust that it'll turn out for the better." And with that, the Shinigami is shooed away.

He leans against the door, takes in an angry breath that comes out slow, and starts to walk away. He needs to shove that stupid monster out of his mind, because it's a student now, and he knows that no amount of words will sway his father's choice.

_(And yet he will rule the throne one day, why does he not get a say in the creature's fate?)_

Rounding the hall he sees it. The skinny thing is with Maka, who laughs and smiles at it like nothing is wrong in the world when there are so many things that are fucked up with it in truth.

He watches it follow the Scythe Meister from a set distance down the hall, set apart from the other students, and it sticks to her like superglue, afraid of letting go, afraid of being seen.

It doesn't make sense. Where is the monster that had tried to kill him on the Niddhogg? What is this thing that walks the perfectly symmetrical halls?

The Demon Sword shouldn't exist because there are so many unnatural things about it. The blob sprouting from it's back, the midnight black blood that runs thick in it's veins, it's soul tainted with darkness and snakes and ink, and its physical form, too.

It shouldn't be here, at all.

_(Kidd watches it from afar and he knows that it needs to go.)_

XXXXXXXX

The light of the outside is blinding, and she doesn't want to see because her eyes sting, whether from tears or from the light, it doesn't matter. It simply hurts.

Part of her wants to return to the dark, while the other pines to stay in the light. It's so conflicting that she can't deal with it.

But Maka insists she stay in the light instead of her safe, dark corner, so she follows.

There's too many people in the world, people that Medusa wanted her to kill. They give her strange looks she can't identify with and they whisper behind her back, but after a week of Maka waving books at them threateningly, they silence.

The friends of her new friend don't help much. Black*Star's too loud and welcoming and Patti scares her with creepy and sadistically happy looks, Soul just drones on. She thinks Liz and Tsubaki are OK, people that she can tolerate. Maka says it's because they're much more sensible than the rest.

But there's something about the last one that Chrona fears.

It's the little Shinigami boy from the ship, and he just doesn't seem right in the circle of friends. They're colored yellow or white or blue or tan or red, but him, he's just black and white, stark and pale and almost grimfaced against the world. He moves with the stiffness of a stone golem come to life and awakening from a long slumber in the cold, cold winter. There's too little color and if not for his hard yellow eyes Chrona would mistake him for the dead.

He says 'Welcome to Shibusen' in a kind, if almost neutral, manner, but his eyes hide something. They hide another purpose, another feeling, exactly the way her mother would hide sinister plans. She distrusts those eyes because they follow her like he expects her to bite.

And when they pass the boy in the hallway one day, Maka chattering away about what classes are supposed to be like, she brushes her arm against his on accident and it almost feels like something explodes inside her, shattering her senses and putting her on edge. Sparks fly and they fry her soul briefly, they electrocute her body and everything hurts.

Their souls rub the wrong way. He's a Shinigami and she's the child of a witch, and in accordance to the laws of the world they are supposed to kill each other.

She's tired of killing.

When she glances back, stunned and frightened by the resulting effect, he does too.

And for a moment there's unguarded, terrifying anger and hatred in his yellow pupils. They look far too much like Medusa's.

_(Her creator is dead, but he's stepped in to take her place. She feels that he wants her out of his life, out of the school and out of the city because witches don't deserve second chances in their eyes. They harvest their souls for the weapons and that is that._

_She goes all out to avoid him, but Death is something that even the most hardy and immortal of witches cannot hide from.)_

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**A/N:** I suppose what happened was I ended up taking a long break from writing Soul Eater after realizing how shitty my writing was, and then started reading a most peculiar little webcomic. I then backtracked to this series with a, hopefully, better grasp on characterization and expansive headcanons, in addition to coming up with new ideas. This is one of them.

I have a couple other Kidd/Chrona fics posted on my Fanfiction LiveJournal, including a rather long anthology-ish oneshot. Been experimenting a lot with this pairing, actually, come to think of it.

This is more or less an experiment with a new writing style, you could say.


	2. Regimen

A/N: Back with more, I guess. Goddammit Kidd why are you so hard to write all of a sudden?

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The cogs of the human mind are wired differently for everyone. In Kidd's own he is higher than most. He can see inperfections where other's cannot. It's something that he prides himself in rather than thinks is hindering.

Standing before his bathroom mirror, the dark boy runs his fingers over and over again through the hideous stripes, scowling at the imperfect reflection. They will be completed one day, in the long run, but for now, they torment him and taunt him for not being complete, what his is meant to strive to be.

But it could be worse. He comforts himself with that thought and calmly turns the water on, soaking his hands in lukewarm comfort.

Kidd is a god, a shinigami, death itself. If anything his life had taught him of how his father's status could improve anything, and perfect anything if he wishes. True, money is of no object to him, but even that could only go so far. Endless boxes of dye do nothing for his hair, and even construction, no matter how precise and how balanced the work is, can be thrown off with the slighyest mistake. Cutting and shaving his hair was futile, for it would just grow right back the next day.

But truely, the focus of a Shinigami is to eliminate any sort of threat to balanced order.

The monster that is allowed to roam free in their school plagues his thoughts constantly, makes him feel disgusted all over and angry that he did not eliminate it while he had the chance, otherwise, it would not be here, and there would be no rampaging Kishin.

A lingering feel of consciousness warns him that their completion and his own ascention will be impossible for him to reach forever if the Demon Sword is harmed without reason, but this thought is shoved away with plans put into motion. There is no room for weakness and he is going to expose that thing for the monster it is.

Maybe, then, when he shows them all the vile things underneath it's pale, he'll be worthy of being completed.

What he must know about the Demon Sword first is how it works; how he can tear it apart from the inside. There are wires ripe for the pulling and twisting around his fingers, truths that can be exposed if a blade is slipped in at the right angle, gears that can be ground to a halt. He itches to peal back the layer of skin and supposed innocence that the monster wears to show everyone the exact nature of that black blood running thick in it's veins.

He is going to ruin it.

_(Kidd looks at himself in the mirror and for once does not focus on the white lines. He instead thinks about how he is going to do it. How he is going to expose the Demon Sword for it's monsterous nature that they are all too blind to see.)_

XXXXXXXX

Chrona is hustled past crowds that try to smother her own life in the hallways, and through groups of students chit-chatting away about things she probably wouldn't understand, urged on by her friend with small, calloused hands ushering gently on the small of her back. She's guided through to a single door to a vast room; a classroom, Maka says to her as she's pulled up stairs to slide between rows of desks to a spot near the middle.

She feels unbelievably exposed and in a bright spotlight that she doesn't want to be stuck in here, as Maka pulls a book or two from a small bag. The pinkette mimics her, uncertainty festering in the pits of her stomach because she has never been to a class before. Reading and writing are simply the basics that Medusa taught her and that was it.

Everything else; dark, killing, black blood, and endless bullying from her weapon.

The pencil feels very unfamiliar to one who only uses a sword, and her hand tingles slightly from the strange position her fingers hold it.

_(A memory, unbidden, of sitting in an isolated room with a single paper and piece of graphite in hand comes to mind. Medusa had taught her the letters, showed her how to read. It wasn't related to killing or bunnies and she wasn't being starved to death when she messed up._

_Even now, she wonders what the purpose of that was.)_

Eventually, everyone else starts filing in, break nearly completed and Chrona's skin immediately begins to crawl on it's own accord. Soul brushes past her with not much more than a slight wave and plops down next to Maka. He leans to mutter into her ear some joke that she would never be able to laugh at, but Maka can.

Stein rolls in on a squeaky chair. She remembers her mother commenting on him sometimes, when she would sit on the floor and lean against the back of her mothers desk as she created a new concoction to be injected into her body. He is creepy, with tired gray eyes and gray hair, but oddly, doesn't pay much attention to anyone in paticular.

Chrona doesn't necessarily understand his lecture about souls and how they work, but she listens, because that is what Maka tells her to do.

It's not long after class start does she, unbiddingly, feel a strong shiver vibrate the length of her spine, spreading across her arms and up her neck like little bolts of electricity. Chrona doesn't know what to think of it, except that it feels like her entire back has been set on fire.

The sensation of being watched sinks into her ribs and clings to her skin like thick, cold fog. The air in the room grows denser and it's all she can do to not be crushed by it, keep herself from giving into gravity and sinking away in her chair till she can't be seen.

XXXXXX

The Demon Sword knows, he thinks, because he keeps his eyes fixed on it bony back and it simply hunches a little more over the desk.

The more he watches it, the more his stomach churns with disgust. His pinkies twitch in reflex, longing for a streak of wavelength bullet to follow the action. Stein's voice drones into the background like blurred charcoal.

On his left, Liz fidgets with her hair, and on his right, Patti doodles with highlighters he can neither confirm nor deny once belonged on the desk in the front of class. Below, Maka sits squished between her snoring partner and that lowlife monster.

His eyes trace the strands of lavender hair. Kidd growls under his breath. Lopsided, hacked away in cruel angles. Bile rises in his throat but he fights it down. He is nearly overcome with the urge to eliminate it here and there, and fights to stay patient. He certainly can't kill it in the middle of class, nor do anything to try and smother it's existance from the range of his Soul Perception.

Frustation spasms up his spine, festers in his gut and makes his teeth grind. The Shinigami glares and hopes he can burn holes into it's back so that black blood will spill and everyone can see just how vile this thing it.

Stein's lecture ends abruptly and he turns his eyes away to see papers being handed out.

_(No progress is made today. He can't get close to it with Maka around, but he knows the cell it's normally locked away in at the end of the school day, down in the darkest, coldest parts of Shibusen's basement._

_He'll discover it empty, and, to his disbelief, finds out it's been sent on a mission with Soul and Maka, unfitly trusted.)_

XXXXXX

"What's wrong?" Comes Maka's whisper right beside her. As quickly as it had come, the unease and the burning of her flesh is gone and she takes in a long, slightly shaky breath, because the air that hangs about her is suddenly clean again. The lecture has ended, she suddenly finds, and Stein is passing out sheets of paper.

"N-nothing..." She answers, because she isn't sure what's wrong herself. It's not a lie.

"Maybe it's still too soon to bring you to class..." Maka says to her, to which Chrona shakes her head. As much as she doesn't want to be here, that can't be it.

Can it?

She doesn't know, and accepts the paper she's handed by the person on her other side. The text marching across the clean white like little black insects doesn't click. She doesn't think she can handle classwork or whatever this is supposed to be.

And then it comes back, no sooner had the class leaned over their papers, pencils lightly flicking across to fill in answers. Chrona tries to hunch over her paper, tries to pretend it doesn't exist in favor of focusing on the paper, but all that does is make it harder to ignore.

She risks turning around, trying to find the invisble source, and immediately regrets it.

It's the Shinigami boy again, sitting between his two weapons and as prominent as a black and white statue in a room of warm, colorful moving bodies.

And, again, his yellow eyes are on her, narrowed and suspicious and absolutely terrifying.

They watch and they wait, observe, try tear her very existance into pieces like shredded paper.

Chrona swallows down the frightened whimper that threatens to escape her trachea and turns away, hands trembling. If anything, she wants to take her mind off those eyes that watch her as though she was going to sprout needles of black blood then and there and skewer everyone. They burn holes in her skin and she nervously starts to slowly scribble answers with horribly scrawled handwriting.

_(It's to her own surprise that she gets a few of them right, not all, but enough to pass. It's simple stuff about souls, which she had known already._

_Maka praises her as they walk out the door of the class, but she doesn't know why she deserves any. The Shinigami boy, who had been watching her the entire class period and making her sweat fearfully simply walks past them both like nothing had happened.)_

XXXXXX

A/N: Kidd, please. Stop being so hard to write I'm trying to give you some humanity here.


End file.
